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Accidental discharge of bear spray

Im wondering if anyone has had to deal with accidental discharge of bear spray that inflicked yourself or someone else, not a animal. How did it happen and what did you do. I knowing flushing with cool/cold water is best but what other tips do you know of to cut the oil off the skin its self. What little information I can find says, milk or honey, but I am sure there is other home remedies.

Not bear spray-

Never had bear spray so I don't know, but I have had a personal defense pepper spray go off in my pants pocket before - Used lots of dish-soap and lots of water. Nothing that I know of really gets rid of it that well...

As a part of pepper spray certification in Florida I had to agree to be sprayed with this stuff... shoot the bear it's more humane . Seriously IF you spray yourself you WILL be helpless for 20 minutes. If you just get a small whiff you will experience burning and watering eyes. You can try all kinds of stuff but it's just gonna hurt like H3LL for 20 to 30 minutes. I hope no one ever gets hit with this stuff nothing really helps.

I've been accidentally sprayed twice with bear spray. I've also been sprayed with regular capstun. Something different between the two but I don't know how to describe it.

Dawn dishwashing detergent didn't work. I tried that. Water, flushing your eyes with lots of water. Flushing your face with lots of water. The dastardly effects only lasted a few minutes. You can still see but you gotta hold your eye lids open.

It makes every mucous membrane in your eyes and nose flow like you wouldn't believe. I didn't know I had so much snot up my nose. It wasn't pretty.

The burning skin is what I had a hard time getting over. Don't rub it whatever you do.
Again more of the flushing, running water thing.

This is precisely why I don't carry the crap anymore. I was on a moose hunting trip a couple years ago with a friend from Indiana. He really wanted to test fire the spray. The wind was swirling and we both got a tiny bit on us. Talk about a pain in the butt. I still want to be able to shoot after an encounter with a bear. A lot of good it will do for me to be incapacitated and not be able to defend myself. I just went back to what I knew best...carry a firearm and pay attention to my surroundings.

Some yeas ago had a can of Mace in my back pocket and set it off. Was driving down the hi-way with no place to stop or get water to flush it with. Wound up with the nicest burn on my rearend for a while. Havant put Mace, Pepper Spray or Bear Spray in my back pocket since, in fact dont carry any of it any more.

We're talking bear spray, so I will assume you're going to be out in the woods.

All the advice says, "flush with lots of cool water".

Should be pretty easy to stagger around in the forest, blind and blowing snot, and find yourself a faucet on a nearby tree to stick your head under. The bear is probably going to be baffled by your actions, figure that you're on some kind of drugs or something, and go find something else to eat.

So, the only real practical advice is, "don't get sprayed". Treat the can of spray like a loaded gun. Do your best to avoid bears and if you can see bears, you should try to stay upwind of them anyway as your scent helps them ID and avoid you.

If you do get sprayed, there is really nothing you can do to fix it. You're down for 20-60 minutes. OC must work its course. Do NOT rub it or wipe it off as this simply pushes it deeper into the pores on your skin and makes it worse. Remove all contaminated clothing. If you do have access to clean water, then flushing the residue off the skin is the best initial treatment. Adding soap will help. Use cool water, since warm water will open up the pores on your skin and drive the OC in deeper. Flush your eyes ONLY if you have very clean (or sterile) water or better yet, a buffered sterile eye wash solution. Blinking a lot can also help as tear production will assist with washing the OC out of the eyes.

And unfortunately, that is about all that can be done. Leading back to prevention is the most important part.

The reason for the question is....

I have a friend who accompanies me while I am out photographing animals or sometimes we just go fishing so always want to try to prepare for the unexpected. Well weekend before last some how he lost the trigger lock on his can of spray. He was unaware of this until he went to get in his car and accidently let out a small amount of spray that came my way. I felt the effects of it but the effects was very minor, thank goodness, none the less very uncomfortable. He didn't realize he had spray on his hands and rubbed his face and eyes...needless to say the result was painful. So this past weekend he was trying to be cautious, we even discussed the fact he needed to dispose of this spray and buy a new one with a lock, no more then said this when he went to put the canister of spray in the door slot and once again accidentaly sprayed himself, this time a direct hit in the face. The doors was closed, windows was up a/c was on. It got all over his suv, him and me. In that split second I heard the spray go off, I held my breath and jumped out of the car, so I was lucky that it didn't get as bad as it could of. We was very close to his house so I rushed him there, stripped him down got him in the shower.
The cold water flushing his eyes and skin helped alot but in tender part of the skin, his neck, arm crease, ears...he was stained yellow from the spray.
I fell back upon my nursing days and looked around his place to see what I could find, the only thing I came across was a jug of vinger, so I wet paper towels and tested it on the crease of his forarm. He said it was making it feel alot better and the burning was subsiding. It was also removing the yellow spray stain. So we went with, he stunk and the wouldn't have nothing to do with him for a few days it work and it worked fast. So maybe I stumbled across another possible solution for anyone who might accidently get sprayed. There is little information I can find online about how to deal with the effects of the spray.
I used easy off oven cleaner, gloves, toothbrush and q-tips to get the spray off his car door, which worked very well. Needless to say I presonally took the spray away from him and disposed of it.
Thanks for the stories and tips.

Had a Solider who had large can of pepper spray break open when carried in Haiti. We rushed him to a pressure washer, bad part was when it broke the contents was in his groin area. Needless to say the eye/breathing irritant took a second place to they pain in his groin area.